- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph went large and the team defense took over in a big comeback win.
The Lead: After seeing their normally elite defense slide some in the immediate aftermath of the Rudy Gay trade, the Grizzlies have come out of the All-Star break in ferocious form. In all five games since the break, there’s been a quarter where they’ve held the opposition to 15 or fewer points: Twelve in the second against the Pistons. Fourteen in the first against the Raptors. Fifteen in the third against the Magic. Thirteen in the third against the Nets.
Tonight? How about five points in the third quarter for the Mavericks?
But it was even more than that. From the mid-second quarter until late in the third, the Grizzlies’ team defense reached beyond the normal threshold, morphing into some kind of wild, seething, pulsating beast. Flying out at shooters, darting to defensive boards, handcuffing ballhandlers, snatching and pestering all over the floor.
The second-quarter ended on a 16-4 run in the final five minutes that included six Dallas turnovers, five of those caused by Griz steals and the other an out of bounds violation spurred by defensive pressure.
Coming out for the third, the Grizzlies held the Mavericks completely scoreless for more than eight minutes and without a field-goal for nearly nine minutes. The Mavericks scored only two baskets in the entire quarter and only one was against a set defense. Spanning the quarters was a 24-0 run, a franchise record. As was the five-point quarter allowed.
The catch tonight was that the Grizzlies had to have that kind of mind-boggling defensive spurt, because it was preceded by a narcoleptic first quarter in which they gave up 38 points before falling behind by 25 points early in the second.
“I don’t know what their mindset was coming in,” Lionel Hollins said of his team after the game.
